The Morphology of Iron Age Storage Jars and Its Relation to the Handbreadth Measure (Biblical Tefach)

In this paper we compare morphological features of three groups of Iron Age storage jars that were unearthed in several Judahite and Israelite sites. The most famous group is the royal Judahite storage jars with stamped handles ("lmlk," "rosette," etc.). The other two groups are...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Authors: Karasik, Avshalom (Author) ; Harush, Ortal (Author) ; Smilansky, Uzy 1941- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: The University of Chicago Press 2020
In: Bulletin of ASOR
Year: 2020, Volume: 384, Pages: 183-190
Further subjects:B tefach
B 3D scanning
B handbreadth
B Iron Age pottery
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:In this paper we compare morphological features of three groups of Iron Age storage jars that were unearthed in several Judahite and Israelite sites. The most famous group is the royal Judahite storage jars with stamped handles ("lmlk," "rosette," etc.). The other two groups are the "Hippo" jars found abundantly in Israelite sites and the jars from Khirbet Qeiyafa (Judah), assigned chronologically to the early 10th century b.c.e. We scanned most of the available jars in 3D and compared them in a detailed morphological study. We extracted several metric measures and observed large variations between jars within a group and, to a larger extent, between jars from different groups. The only exception is the inner rim diameter, which shows surprising uniformity. Moreover, the distribution of inner rim diameters is consistent with anthropometric measurements of the handbreadth of the human male. We provide a detailed description of our methodology and findings and offer a few alternative explanations for the clear correlation between the measured inner rim diameter and the human tefach.
ISSN:2161-8062
Contains:Enthalten in: American Schools of Oriental Research, Bulletin of ASOR
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1086/710529